Bad.

The police officer with the pepper spray, identified as Lt. John Pike of the UC Davis Campus Police, looks utterly nonchalant, for all the world as if he were hosing aphids off a rose bush. The scene bespeaks a lack of basic human empathy, an utter intolerance for dissent, or perhaps both. Pike’s actions met with approval from the chief of campus police, Annette Spicuzza, “who observed the chaotic events on the Quad, [and] said immediately afterward that she was ‘very proud’ of her officers.” Clearly in Chief Spicuzza’s mind there was nothing exceptional about the use of pepper spray against nonviolent protesters.

Campus and community response has held otherwise. Chancellor Linda Katehi (the Chancellor is the top administrative officer of a UC campus) sent an email Friday afternoon saying, “We are saddened to report that during this activity, 10 protestors were arrested and pepper spray was used.” Note the Reaganesque passive voice. One might well conclude from that construction that the protesters were the ones using the pepper spray; one does not have one’s attention called to the fact that the Chancellor herself ordered the police to the quad.

A Saturday email from the Chancellor uses slightly stronger language: “Yesterday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud”—clearly the Chancellor hasn’t spoken to Chief Spicuzza—“… The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.”

But it is clear that the use of pepper spray was not so much chilling as routine for the police officers and also, again, that Chancellor Katehi ordered the police to clear the quad of protesters. Was she then surprised by what ensued? Did she not see what happened at UC Berkeley only a week ago? Based on even a passing familiarity with both recent and more distant history, the results should and could have been predicted; a reasonable person should have known to a first approximation how UC campus police might respond when facing nonviolent protesters, and, most important, a prudent administrator should have given strict instructions on how to handle such a situation.

What is remarkable here is less the error of zeal than the sin of ignorance. Violence is an ineffective response to nonviolent protest, a fan to the flames of community unrest. Those of us who teach the history of the US in the 1960s know this; Martin Luther King, Jr. and other leaders in the nonviolent Civil Rights movement understood how to capitalize on the pigheaded stupidity of the policemen they faced. Eugene “Bull” Connor, police chief of Birmingham, used fire hoses and Alsatians against nonviolent protesters, including schoolchildren and college students; Jim Clark, the sheriff at Selma, used tear-gas and billy clubs. Their names we know, for these characters are inextricable from major Civil Rights victories: they helped create the indelible images that shocked the world and fostered lasting change in America.

Or perhaps not that much has changed after all. To see the attitudes of segregationist police officers toward civil dissenters recapitulated on our campus is a matter of great shame. As Chancellor Katehi suggests in her statement linked above, UC Davis should be “a place of inquiry, debate, and even dissent.” We cannot fathom how such sentiments can coexist with the callous brutality of Friday. That said, we agree with the Chancellor. Universities should devote themselves to inquiry and learning. Such activities can thrive only in an atmosphere that not only tolerates but encourages rigorous debate and dissent, an atmosphere in which students and faculty feel confident and safe even when they choose to confront the administration with contrary opinions.

Americans have known for decades it is both immoral and ineffective to meet nonviolence with violence. UC Berkeley and its Chancellor, Robert Birgeneau, provided us a reminder of this lesson last week. But we forget nothing and learn nothing. Ronald Reagan, after all, met UC protesters with tear gas. Which can help you get attention so you can run for higher office. But it is no way to run a campus.

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68 comments

I hope you’ll be sending this to the administration in some vehicle they understand, like a letter to the editor or a mass mailing to the faculty senate. I’d hate to see it ignored for using futuristic 1997-era “blog” technology.

I’m sure Lt Pike will say he was only following orders and my immediate question was, “whose orders and what, specifically, were they?” The “who” seems to be answered but what were the orders? Clear the quad? Distract the media away from Penn State? Use up all the old cans of anti-citizen sprays so we can order new supplies?

Consider what we would see if police departments didn’t have access to non-lethal weapons.

Not excusing Katehi, but often police and military reinterpret their orders once they’re on location. I’ve never read a study, but in many cities I’m familiar with the police are semi-autonomous and have adversarial attitudes toward civilian government. The militarized Wars on Drugs and Terror only exacerbate that attitude. The War on Terror federalizes certain local officers, who are not allowed to share information with their nominal local civilian superiors.

I would like to know what you think the right way to clear out protesters that are breaking the law? Picture a non-violent protest that you don’t agree with, say some group is “protesting” by blocking access to polling places on election day in neighborhoods that tend to vote for politicians they don’t like. What is the proper way to restore access?

Picture a non-violent protest that you don’t agree with, say some group is “protesting” by blocking access to polling places on election day in neighborhoods that tend to vote for politicians they don’t like.

Okay, I’m picturing something not even vaguely comparable to what happened at UC Davis. Now what?

I mean, the fact that you put “protesting” in scare quotes in your example does show that even you you realize that what the people are doing there is not protesting, but vote suppression.

Bernie is a reminder that authoritarianism has increased greatly during the last several decades. I’m sure you could get 5% support for just killing a bunch of them; Ann Coulter has been advocating that for some time. (I’m curious to know exactly what that number is, but I’m not sure that I really want to know.)

Malaclypse, your right, I didn’t want to argue the right or wrong of different causes. I’m asking an honest question, if you decide to remove peaceful non-violent protesters, what is an acceptable way to do it? The particular reason for needing to remove or arrest them doesn’t matter.

I’m asking an honest question, if you decide to remove peaceful non-violent protesters, what is an acceptable way to do it?

That’s simple:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

It’s my understanding, Bernie, that police typically try to talk to peaceful protestors before employing non-lethal force. The protestors, if they are going to be arrested, are offered the choice of either leaving on their own, walking to the squad cars in other words, or being dragged or carried off by the police. In this case, the police have made it clear that they turned to non-lethal force — tear gas — because after they made some initial arrests, the protestors didn’t allow them to leave the Quad. But the thing is, the video suggests that the protestors made only a symbolic line of resistance, that the police could have stepped around or over that line (as they in fact did), and thus that the use of tear gas wasn’t necessary for the reason the police cite.

Doesn’t seem so simple to me. Protesters in the past have shut down, or attempted to shutdown access to banks, abortion clinics, logging camps, legislatures, funerals, hospitals, entire neighborhoods, and highways. Are you saying that as long as there is enough people to peacefully block all the entrances that they should be allowed to stay as long as they like?

I’m not saying anything of the sort, Bernie. Please don’t put words in my mouth. There are, as it happens, plenty of my words up in the original post. If you’d like to argue with something I’ve actually written or said, please feel free to do so. Beyond that, I’m not getting dragged into a game of hypotheticals. “What if the police had reliable intelligence that one of the protestors had the ability shoot death rays from her or his eyes? What sort of force would have been justified then?” No thanks.

Ari, I don’t know enough about the specifics here, you sound like you do and so I assume your right. If the post had made an argument that the removal of the protesters was wrong, I wouldn’t have commented. I read the post as an argument that the tactics used by the police were wrong.

“Violence is an ineffective response to nonviolent protest” and “Clearly in Chief Spicuzza’s mind there was nothing exceptional about the use of pepper spray against nonviolent protesters.”

I’m trying to figure out what people believe is an acceptable means of removing nonviolent protesters once it is decided that the need to be removed. The police that actually do the job of removing people are almost never the ones who make that decision. Given that 1)the police are almost always outnumbered in these situations, 2)non-violent protests sometimes turn violent when the police start grabbing people to arrest them, and 3) the police have human emotions and can overreact when someone resist, I can’t think of a better way to temporarily disable the people who they are trying to remove. I’m wondering if someone has a better way.

I explained above, Bernie, what I believe to be the generally accepted method of removing non-violent protestors: speak to them civilly before removing them, ask if they’d like to leave on their own or be carried, try not to escalate a tense situation. Beyond that, I’m not interested in taking part in a broad discussion of hypotheticals. Thanks.

Ari and Eric: thank you for your very good post. People here in Austin TX, like people all over the country, are shocked by what happened Friday and are hungry for accounts of what happened. I’ve written Pike, the chancellor, and signed petitions, but if there is anything else that far-flung supporters can do, let us know. I spent a lot of happy time on that quad for four years in the 1990s, which makes the sight of this repression even more repugnant to me.

Likewise, for over 30 years I have seen police universally understand this gesture. Many many times I have seen police treat protestors who sat and linked arms when told they must disperse or face arrest as a very routine matter: the police then approach the protestors individually and ask them if, upon arrest, they are going to walk of their own accord or not the police will have to carry them. In fact, this has become so routine that I have often wondered if this form of protest had become so scripted as to have lost most of its meaning.

Right, the nonviolent “removal” of nonviolent protesters is a well-trod routine. In this case, you’ve got to wonder whether even the standard approaches wouldn’t have been overkill — what would have been the problem with letting them stay?

Bernie, in point of fact pepper spray is generally not allowed in circumstances like this. In most cases it is reserved for cases when there’s risk to life, and in a California recently people had been wrongly pepper-sprayed won a case and received restitution from the police. I say “generally” and “in most cases” because it’s probably not universal. But the ignorant should be reminded that this is not routine practice.

I can’t think of a better way to temporarily disable the people who they are trying to remove.

I don’t think that you’re trying very hard, Bernie, since the only way you can think of is one that is often officially forbidden. Perhaps you should apply your mind to things that you’re better at.

Agreed, Eric, that judgment was made by the administration, and it was clearly a bad one. If Katehi runs a university where the police don’t know how to move protesters non-violently, she shouldn’t be ordering removal.

I’m trying to figure out what people believe is an acceptable means of removing nonviolent protesters once it is decided that the need to be removed.

Seriously? You can’t think of *any* step between just letting them sit there forever, on one hand, and blinding them with pepper spray and making them vomit, on the other? Are you really that simple minded?

How about just picking the protesters up and carrying them to the police cruiser? It’s worked for a few hundred years or so, and as several people here have noted, it’s a common tactic police have used in similar situations. It removes the protestors, but civilly and without violence.

Not only is it not SOP, it is legally questionable, given the “threat level” present – it’s worth noting that the use of pepper spray on nonviolent demonstrators in California has been determined to be excessive where there were less intrusive alternatives. (Headwaters Forest Defense v. County of Humboldt (9th Cir. 2002) 276 F.3rd 1125.) A summary of that case is here:http://www.elawreview.org/summ…

“Not excusing Katehi, but often police and military reinterpret their orders once they’re on location.”

If this occurs “often”, then those in an oversight role should anticipate that and have a responsibility to determine where the orders have been reinterpreted in an improver manner and to un-reinterpret them. That is, to conduct oversight.

John Emerson, by my calculation, Katehi was a first-year student at the National Technical University when students there went on strike in November 73 and things started spiraling out of control for the junta. In fact, November 17th is a holiday celebrated at institutions of higher education around the country in honor of the uprising.

Dale: So was she part of the strike? Because if she was, she might be experiencing some extra stress. But if she was supporting the colonels, maybe she chose the right place of exile.

If this occurs “often”, then those in an oversight role should anticipate that and have a responsibility to determine where the orders have been reinterpreted in an improver manner and to un-reinterpret them. That is, to conduct oversight.

As they say on Radio Yerevan: in principle, yes. But in fact, the less-lethal authorities often fear the fully-lethal authorities.

AP is reporting that Lt. Pike and another officer have both been put on leave, pending investigation. Be good if Katehi joins them.

One thing about the chain of command here; if Katehi truly understood her responsibility as chancellor of the institution, she should have been on the quad working to resolve the situation. The fact she was not is another reason for her to be dismissed.

Thank you for expressing the reasoned outrage and the sense of shock at historical ignorance that I am feeling at this moment. I am an alumna of UCD and I work there three days a week. I saw the students and their tents in the Quad, and I am deeply upset by the callous and unnecessary use of pepper spray on non-violent protestors.
Shennan Hutton

Whoa, how long has this blog been back in commission? Glad to have it back, but let’s just say I wish there were less to discuss…

The video of the UCD incident has been a hot topic on my Facebook feed lately. In fact, I see significantly more outrage from my non-Davis friends than the Davis natives (though there’s plenty to go around). What disturbs me, however, is that there is quite a bit of hyperbole, generalizations, and reactionary responses being bandied about. A few examples off the top of my head include phrases like, “Fuck the police,” and, “Fucking pigs,” as well as comparisons to Kent State. Bernie reveals that this lack of critical thinking can also be found among those with a police-sympathetic viewpoint.

I have my own view of the events, though my opinion is not yet well-formed. Here is a summary of some of my random thoughts:
1) Lt. Pike’s actions were uncalled for.
2) All videos lie. Even the best of them. Perhaps the better (but unduly gentle) way to say this is, “Videos tell a story with a slant.” Broader spatial and temporal context is lost in any video and I think this video is at best a typical example of how context is lost.
3) Being a police officer is one of the most thankless jobs one can have.
4) It only takes a moment of poor judgment to make a situation drastically worse– we’ve all been there. Yes, we expect the highest restraint from officers, but it’s important to remember that behind it all, they’re still human beings.
5) I see a lot of hate for the police in general over the actions of one or two officers. Ari’s and Eric’s post brings to light Annette Spicuzza’s praise for her officers, though I remain more interested in who issued what orders and when. That Chief Spicuzza attempted to support her officers after they were literally chanted off campus in shame is almost irrelevant to the issue at hand. Judgment should be reserved for those who showed poor judgment, not the institution of the police as a whole.
6) Professor Nathan Brown claims in his open letter to Chancellor Katehi that, “When students covered their eyes with their clothing, police forced open their mouths and pepper-sprayed down their throats.” I don’t believe it. Or rather, I’ll believe it when I see it. Isn’t it enough to let the video speak for itself without spreading lies?
7) I still support pepper spray as a far less dangerous deterrent than guns or even tasers. It was improperly used here, but I think the use of pepper spray is preferable to the threat of a gun.
8) Perhaps the biggest question is how Katehi fits in with this all. It’s clear from her two open letters (Removed from the UCD website. Can anyone retrieve them?) that she at least had some hand in dispatching the police to disperse the crowd and she was initially almost completely unapologetic about her role in the events (“deeply saddened” is not sufficient– anyone would be deeply saddened by this display). She now appears to be in the process of vigorously backpedaling. Yet as negligent as she may have been throughout it all, I highly doubt she specifically requested that pepper spray be used.

I see some echoes of these sentiments in the above comments as well as some vigorous opposition to them. In any case, I’d like to thank Ari and Eric for a well-written and thoughtful post on the matter. To everyone, regardless of your opinions, I urge circumspection and restraint. Comparisons to Kent State, cries of “fascism”, and other needless equivocation and hyperbole only further distort and detract from what is told by the video.

I’d also like to share an article from The Atlantic on the broader recent history of crowd suppression. It paints what I believe to be a reasonably accurate picture of Lt. Pike’s actions being the result of not one gung-ho officer but instead years of evolving police procedures for dispersing crowds.

[Editor’s Note (AK): I’m leaving this one alone. “Ari Kelman, UC, Kissinger Studies” is just about the best thing I’ve ever read. I’m going to have that printed on my business cards. Sometimes you’ve gotta admire the art even as you deplore the artist.]

Doesn’t it strike you as implausible, if not outright dangerous for officers to force their fingers into unwilling protesters’ mouths just to force pepper spray down their throats? I don’t believe it without evidence. There is no such evidence in the videos posted (but I will welcome it if you find it). Until someone shows me video of an officer forcing open a student’s mouth and spraying pepper spray down their throat, I will presume that Professor Brown’s claim is exactly what I said it is– a lie.

And if you take issue with my post (which I completely grant you, as I am wrong at least half the time), please evaluate it as a whole and don’t just cherry-pick some poorly-thought out sentences that don’t reflect its broader content.

erubin, the Chancellor’s letters are linked in the post and as of this typing the links are good.

Not quite. Looks like you had one of them, but the other one I was referring to was this one. I think it’s important to have her message to students prior to police intervention. Both letters are still on the UCD website, but they used to be prominently linked on the front page. Thanks for setting the record straight, though.

Your post is antithetical to itself, eribin. You go from “All videos lie” to “I’ll believe it when I see it. Isn’t it enough to let the video speak for itself without spreading lies?” in the same post. At that point I stopped trying to even get a coherent viewpoint from the post.

I am appalled by images of University of California students being doused with pepper spray and jabbed with police batons on our campuses.
I intend to do everything in my power as president of this university to protect the rights of our students, faculty and staff to engage in non-violent protest.
Chancellors at the UC Davis and UC Berkeley campuses already have initiated reviews of incidents that occurred on their campuses. I applaud this rapid response and eagerly await the results.
The University of California, however, is a single university with 10 campuses, and the incidents in recent days cry out for a systemwide response.
Therefore I will be taking immediate steps to set that response in motion.
I intend to convene all 10 chancellors, either in person or by telephone, to engage in a full and unfettered discussion about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest.
To that end, I will be asking the chancellors to forward to me at once all relevant protocols and policies already in place on their individual campuses, as well as those that apply to the engagement of non-campus police agencies through mutual aid agreements.
Further, I already have taken steps to assemble experts and stakeholders to conduct a thorough, far-reaching and urgent assessment of campus police procedures involving use of force, including post-incident review processes.
My intention is not to micromanage our campus police forces. The sworn officers who serve on our campuses are professionals dedicated to the protection of the UC community.
Nor do I wish to micromanage the chancellors. They are the leaders of our campuses and they have my full trust and confidence.
Nonetheless, the recent incidents make clear the time has come to take strong action to recommit to the ideal of peaceful protest.

As I have said before, free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history. It is a value we must protect with vigilance. I implore students who wish to demonstrate to do so in a peaceful and lawful fashion. I expect campus authorities to honor that right.

I try to say, “Let’s all calm down and get the facts straight,” and I’m ridiculed. Can’t say I’m surprised. Please forgive me for not being as eloquent and thoughtful as the rest of you. Clearly my hypocrisy in a comment on a blog post far outweighs the completely rational assertions that Linda Katehi is a fascist. How silly of me.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go back to watching My Little Pony…

Nope, and I’d like to reiterate that I very much liked the blog post itself. John Emerson, however, seems to think that Katehi took lessons from the Greek Junta. The fascism comment came from my Facebook feed. Sorry if that wasn’t clear.

Thank you for that, wu ming. I quote from your link, however, “Someone said they saw him spray down my throat intentionally, but I was so freaked out, and I was blinded by my hat, so I can’t verify.” That is in contrast to your account that his “mouth was forced open and pepper spray shot down his throat” and even the student is unsure of what happened in those moments. If his mouth was forced open, surely there is video evidence of it.

I still just see an officer who irresponsibly used pepper spray from too close a range on nonviolent protesters. Reprehensible, yes, and he should resign. But forcing open a student’s mouth to force pepper spray down his throat is a whole different can of worms.

In any case, I enjoyed the article and found the student’s account to be surprisingly even-handed, considering what he’d been through.

Stop it, erubin, please. There’s no reason to believe that there’s video evidence to support such contentions. Which contentions, by the way, you seem to realize aren’t central to the argument that the police used excessive force and escalated a non-violent situation into a violent one. Beyond that, you’ve already said that you don’t trust video evidence, so I’m not sure why you’re belaboring this point.

To be clear, I’m not asking you to stop commenting. You’re a long-time friend of this blog, and I don’t want you to think otherwise. But this line you’re pursuing is a dead end, I believe, and likely to engender bad feelings at a time when there are already plenty of bad feelings to go around.

Let me suggest that the pertinent facts are clear: the Chancellor sent the police to the Quad to remove the protestors; the police used excessive force in the course of completing that task; as a result, a relatively minor situation turned into a national outrage; more important than that, young people were harmed for no good reason. Unless you dispute any of those facts, I don’t think there’s much more to say about the particulars, including speculating about the veracity of details that are, again, peripheral to the central story.

Point taken, ari. In case it isn’t obvious at this point, I don’t mind people being upset with me. I do not dispute any of the facts you have listed and I think there are very good reasons to be outraged here– but let’s be outraged for the right reasons. All I wish to do is encourage a healthy dose of skepticism and rationality. Successful or not, I think I’ve done all I can. This conversation has run its course and I’m not at all upset with the spirited discussion we’ve shared.

But. I’m undoubtedly making a fool of myself disagreeing with real historians, but there strikes me as something very wrong with this sentence.

Yes, the violence in the south helped persuade northerners and others to federalize the civil rights issue and to pass the Civil Rights Acts. However, most of the north, and most of the country, had decided nearly 100 years earlier that even black people are still people and should be treated like people – that had been done when the 13th – 15th Amendments were passed.

Whenever you use a word like “ineffective” I have to ask: ineffective at acheiving what goal? Ineffective for whom?

For Eugene Connor I’m not sure the violence was ineffective. He undoubtedly was seen as a hero to those whose opinions he valued, and he went on to suffer apparently no political, personal or financial penalty (best as I could tell from Wikipedia). To him, those things may well have been far more important than the fate of the civil rights acts. He was, to himself, undoubtedly the hero who stood with his finger in the dike, no matter how hopeless his sacrifice.

I remember after the Kerner commission came out I was thinking “surely this will lead to better police training and supervision, and we will fix this problem.” But I don’t recall any of the people involved sufferred any personal or political penalty, and nothing changed.

The examples of Clark Kerr, Ronald Reagan, Ed Levi, the NYC Republican convention of 2000 (2004?) and the recent examples of Seattle, Oakland, NYC, Berkely, London, and dozens (hundreds?) of others suggest that state sponsored uniformed violence to suppress dissent is *not* ineffective, at least from the point of view of those perpetrating it.

Lawless violence kept white supremacy dominant in the South for about 60 years, 1900-1960 +/-, and Constitutional principles, the two-party system, and Congressional rules kept it almost unchallenged during that period.